Institutions and facilities which are visited, toured or otherwise used by people, for example, botanical gardens, parks, zoos, museums, galleries, historic sites and structures, entertainment attractions, and related public and private institutions, typically place items on display in large physical settings to serve an educational, entertainment or commercial purpose relating to the specific nature of the site and/or attractions on exhibit or display at such sites. People visit these sites based on their interests, and generally a limited amount of site-specific and/or theme-specific information about the items on display may be provided through, for example, signage, printed handouts, computerized information kiosks, guided tours, and the like. Typically, the institutions and facilities have a much broader and extensive collection of information about their specific displays or exhibits than is practical or otherwise made available to visitors. However, in order to potentially access this broader collection of information, a visitor to such institutions or facilities must take some affirmative action at a later point in time, i.e., after their interest has been piqued or heightened by a particular display. This action generally requires the visitor to conduct research or investigation at a later point in time, e.g., by: contacting the institution or facility to request additional information; by conducting research at the institution's or another's library; or perhaps by conducting on-line research via the Internet or World Wide Web. The nature of the limited access to information and the necessity of taking proactive steps to acquire additional information in the future requires that the visitor retain their interest in the displays or exhibits and recall or somehow record relevant information about such displays or exhibits until such time as they are able to conduct further investigation or research. Accordingly, additional information pertaining to such exhibits, displays or sites is infrequently, if ever, obtained by visitors and, in the unlikely event it is, the nature, quality, accuracy and extent of the additional information is questionable.
In order to enhance the visitors' experience, to attract and retain additional visitors, and to effectively market and/or sell their products and/or services, such institutions and facilities have a recognized need to continuously refine and perfect their information products and services and the delivery thereof. Such desired and necessary refinements include both the type and amount of information made available to visitors and the manner with which the information is delivered to visitors. However, given the current state of the industry, such refinements are often difficult to accomplish due to, among other things: the large physical spaces in which such institutions, facilities, displays, exhibits and sites are typically located; the fact that many such institutions and facilities are frequently located outdoors; and the large number of visitors which attend such institutions and facilities. Indeed, these factors make direct behavioral observations of visitors difficult and, moreover, the entertainment or educational value of the experience to visitors may be diminished by requests for visitor feedback. As a result, one of the most difficult problems faced by such institutions and facilities is how to identify visitors' specific and detailed interests so as to provide continuously refined, personalized, properly tailored, and improved educational, entertainment, or commercial information products and services. Absent attempting to manually solicit visitors' feedback on specific items on display, institutions generally cannot obtain precise data. Additionally, such institutions and facilities do not presently have the ability to accurately determine whether visitors are interested in obtaining additional information pertaining to specific displays, exhibits or sites. Moreover, such institutions and facilities generally do not have an efficient method, if any, to identify and track the interests of its particular visitors, i.e., they lack knowledge as to what displays, characteristics and features visitors were and/or are attracted to or interested in. The ability to effectively gather, assimilate, and assess such information would allow institutions and facilities to more effectively, efficiently, and productively deliver and offer tailored products, services and information related thereto. The information that is provided to visitors by such institutions and facilities is usually chosen based on broad assumptions about what might be of interest to visitors as a whole, practical experience, and occasional visitor feedback, but is never specifically tailored to a particular visitor's needs and interests. To date, such institutions and facilities do not have a means, much less a reliable, efficient and effective means, to gather meaningful data regarding visitors' interests and to provide additional information to visitors.
Accordingly, a new system having the ability to: (i) provide customized, highly detailed information to visitors regarding exhibits, displays or sites of interest; (ii) extract information from large information databases; (iii) tailor such information to each visitor's specific interests; and (iv) gather and compile data regarding visitors' interests; would provide substantial benefits to such institutions and facilities.
Preferably, such a system would allow a customer of, or visitor to, such institutions or facilities to capture their interests at the moment they are piqued by any particular items at such institutions of facilities. The preferred system would allow the visitor to contemporaneously request and obtain additional information relating to their piqued interest, i.e., relating to one of the exhibits on display. Thus, the sites of interest or items on display at such institutions or facilities would be linked to appropriate information sources and/or databases. The request would be made as the visitor's interest arises, i.e., while they are viewing the particular display, or shortly thereafter, that invoked their interest and desire for further information, thus creating a real-time, direct connection between the visitor, their experience and interest in a particular item, and access to vast amounts of information related to that item and interest. The system would preferably have various methods for conveying or delivering the requested information related to particular exhibits, displays or sites to visitors and would allow visitors to chronicle their interests and, at a later point in time, request or receive additional information regarding their particular interests as new information relating to their interests becomes available. Preferably, the system would also record the visitor's interests to create personalized profiles for each visitor. The system would also preferably create, or provide an ability to create, a database of information reflecting visitors' interests relating to specific exhibits, displays and sites. Such interest profiles could then be used to provide or facilitate access to further information and/or to offer products and services tailored to visitors.